Virtuous Bargain
by Furius
Summary: Daeron and Maglor meet and discuss a version of the end of the First Age. (AU)


Maglor looked on, a little wistful, a little sad, and very disapproving when the last ship sailed for Valinor. He didn't expect an invitation, nor did he desire one, but he skulked in the shadows and allowed the sight to irk him until a headache wracked. Guilt and that dreaded Feanorian pride warred within. He had half a mind to step forward in repentance, and half a mind to mock: I am sorry, would you suffer my company, and I'm curious, would my cousin welcome you after so long?

As it was, blood drenched his clothing, a sword was in his hand, and his face remained unmistakable. The elf pushing the boat was silver haired and had a long memory. So Maglor looked on, aggrieved, wishing ill of the wind so there might be a delay as Celeborn waded into the sea, leapt into his dinghy and sailed into the twilight sky.

He stood still, half in disbelief, when the air stilled and the rain fell. The world lit in a shudder of lightening and the figure in the boat turned and seemed to gaze straight at him. Though half-hidden beside a dune and a league away, figure obscured by the tedious rain, Maglor gave a cry when he saw Celeborn's face.

"I really need a word with him." He said, impeccably scruffy: hair tousled by a mild breeze and a shirt that wrinkled at the collars and cuffs. The sandbreakers in their ranks deigned him no reply.

Crudely speaking, but the scene was crude, and oddly jarring, there was a rich elf partying on the beach. The strobe lights shaded his face red, blue, green, yellow and stuttering silver. While it might've looked wonderful to the succession of spindly bare legs that brushed past, Maglor's stomach was queasy at the sight.

"Come down here," He heard the elf say, voice tuned for his attention. Then: "You there, get that man down here before he unplug the power."

Guiltily, Maglor snatched his hand back from the orange coils just within reach before waving the man and his reek away. He stood slowly, sniffed, and patted himself free of sand before starting to walk down the dimly lit footpath.

It took almost one fistfight to move through the throng of people and their jiggling bodies. He wished for a good wind then, to carry the odor of a thousand perfume and cologne labels away. Throwing a contemptuous glance at the precariously balanced fuel load, Maglor saw a hand waving at him, the unimpeachable skin shadowed by firelight, and he stood still, suddenly doubtful. So at the end, it was the other who came to him.

"You know why I'm here." He said, and tried not to wince at the hug and the strong mixture of alcoholic breath, cigar smoke, and the raw smell of the shore wind all at once.

"Suppose I do. I invited you didn't' I? And you came." He frowned at the warmth in the tone.

"I gave you a magnificent death. I don't know why you should sulk." Daeron declared. He handed Maglor a glass of wine so finely layered that when he drank, it seemed to wrap around his throat, half-choking him. He spluttered. Daeron looked at his grey eyes with his own black ones. "There's no reason why you're so caught up about it, even now. It's a very rare honor."

Maglor remembered that Celeborn's face had nothing that indicated of the honor he had been so kindly given and said so, taking a step forward as he's pushed from behind.

"What?" He asked when he looked again, hearing a crunch of glass beneath his shoes. Daeron, half a head shorter, was blanching white and staring, a sharp hiss having escaped from between his teeth.

Maglor looked down, fingers trailing on the familiar hilt for a bit, lifted his hand from it and took another step forward. The occasion wasn't right. But there was never a right occasion for these sort of things. He had grown used to it, and the urge to finally speak had grown beyond his control.

"What was it that you said to me when I woke up?" He asked, hands loose and fingers half curled by his sides, unnaturally still. Daeron regarded him warily, but he listened. "The world was ours? When my brother's dead and the Silmarils are gone. And everyone, you were kind to inform me, thought I was wandering madly on the beach and will be doing so for the rest of my days? Magnificent death?" His voice rose. People were turning around to look. Daeron moved slightly and seemed to become one of them, staring and listening stupidly. "Where, let me ask you, where does it say that I died magnificently?" Belatedly, Maglor saw that he was enjoying the attention.

Then Daeron's face relaxed, and muttered about civil questions and civil answers, gently steering him to the fringe of the dizzy crowd. And Maglor realized that Feanorion ambition had lost none of its frightening power. But surely, came the half-hearted thought, he cannot not think that I really intended to kill him?

The marks of the receding waves were visible on the dark sand, traces of brine painted a curlisque pattern upon the darkening shore. He turned and looked at his strange companion, who was inexplicably looking longingly at the party they left. It seemed important somehow. The telling iridiscense around them had long faded. The borrowed shimmer of the moon caught on the whites of their clothing instead. He tried to ignore that.

"I owe you that much. It's ancient history." Daeron said eventually, voice subtler. Daeron's eyes had focused upon a point beyond his shoulder, Maglor narrowed his own. "Faded into myth. Your fate would've been a footnote of it if had ended abruptly. I made it dramatic. No one needed to know that you intended," Maglor started. "Or at least, compelled to do: drowning yourself with the Silmaril. Now they can be left forever wandering, and forever comforted, that, to borrow a modern phrase, the repentant sinner, Feanorian though he is, may live."

And there, done, there was nothing more said. Maglor stopped: disbelief and a ghostly pride confounding him. The Feanorian inspires! The Feanorian leads...The Feanorian's responsible! So the rhetorical warning lived on in the subtle tricks a simple wood elf employed. His fingers ached in remembrance. To look at him, Daeron seemed nothing: the skin of his face taut over high cheekbones, eyes unnaturally wide in the night, the tell-tale lines at the corner of his mouth and eyes visible as any mortal, though no mortal would've claimed the audacity to steal the Silmaril out of Feanorian hands. Out of nothing, Daeron had risen, and had pushed him into that salty water…. Gods, how his wounds had burned.

His blindness had rendered the world in white and grays, but though Daeron's skin had tanned to a dark gold, only a shade paler than his hair, his figure matched. Maglor closed his eyes, opened them again when a hand touched his elbow. He clenched his fist around his sword, the memory of a familiar motion almost overwhelming.

"Why?"

Under a tent-top with its sides opened to the air were long rectangular tables strewn with remnants of food. A steady creamy light shone in here, and the place was empty. They sat and attempted reason.

"Of course you must be different from Maedhros, even at the end." Daeron continued, voice sure. "You must have wanted enough to live and to repent. It's important. What would your mother think?" Maglor flinched, and glared: that particular favoritism should never have been public knowledge, nor admitted, save for Caranthir's bitterness. Daeron looked down at his hands and turned them over. The palms were completely smooth. Maglor felt his fists clench, nails biting into skin. "I saved you." Daeron whispered. There were alone here. The words grated against Maglor's ears.

"It hurt, didn't it?" He asked, feeling vicious.

"I don't remember." Daeron answered. Maglor smiled tightly: it's his answer.

"Doubt me will. But it was necessary, and your death is magnificent, it marked the closing of an age without you actually dying, yet died you did as the rest of Eldamar would count it. You're romance, Maglor- a seed for legends. And you're repentance and forgiveness also, for the Feanorians. What better than for you to bear the weight of their guilt? The high ones were appeased. Their mercy met its quarry." Daeron said this, and turned as if to stand and leave, except Maglor reached out before he realized and grabbed his arm.

A sudden and thoughtless anger welled up from within only to stop at the back of his throat, still think with scars from centuries ago. Who was this elf, traitor and homeless minstrel, to know what what's beyond understanding and beyond thought? And yet Daeron watched him, his arm almost complacent in Maglor's grasp, his face tense, and the courage in his eyes were laughable.

"Perpetrating these rumors of my madness and despair. What good are they to you Daeron?" He asked softly, words coming out quicker than he would've liked, "I've wondered that for a long time." And I couldn't find you though I looked. You hid from him, Maglor thought, until now. He loosened his hold. Daeron stared at him: irises black entire, nostrils quivering faintly. His breathing sped.

"I walk unmolested. No one seeks me out. No one demands me back. When the call came, a petty minstrel of Beleriand have no such immunity from the gods as a damned son of Feanor has. And yet there was the Silmaril, I would've have long faded if not for you. I wrested the Silmaril from your grasp, and as long as the Silmaril exists, my flesh fades slower than the others, woven into the Lights' fate. I needed it." He paused, calm again. The secret had been kept long. "One good turn deserve another." Despite himself, Maglor wanted to gape. "You Noldor must've been taught differently. To us, life is the most precious thing. You don't regret it of course."

"Of course not. No one regrets not dying." Maglor replied, turning his gaze to Daeron's hand, the fingertips tapping on the tabletop, one at a time in quick succession. There was a corner of an invitation exposed under his hand, and Maglor began to remember that Daeron invented the Cirth: the irony weighed ponderously heavy, a ridiculous weight, that Daeron would shared a trait with the House of Feanor he despoiled: never forget, never forgive, and I myself matter most. He drew a breath, caught Daeron's glance and began to speak.

"Celeborn left today, you know it of course. I saw him: saw him off I suppose. I considered, speculated wildly, that I might presume him to deliver my sword to any who would care to have it in Valinor." Maglor smiled, except it didn't reach his eyes. "Vanities I suppose, or perhaps it shall be interpreted as a sign of goodwill if your plan comes to pass." There was no reaction. "But as I waited, half asleep beneath the dock, a man came at me with a knife. I turned and ran him through, rather unskillfully." The fingers stilled. "I've been a soldier for most of my life, every century other than this one, an amazingly marketable skill I found. Perhaps laboring out of some mistaken sense of duty, I actually called the ambulance afterwards. Therefore, I was covered lamentably in blood when Celeborn showed up. Needless to say, I did not speak with him."

"Did he see you?" Daeron sounded strangled, "Celeborn I mean."

"I didn't see him close, but he turned once and he was old and haggard. I've never seen an elf with a beard before other than Cirdan." Maglor marveled at the amalgam of shadows flickering across a face that still looked at once too old and too young for true beauty. All the familiar fears passed through his face. The line of the mouth had firmed. Yet for what battle, what war is Daeron on the frontlines of?

"The world is ours, what do you intend to do now? Would you heed the call?" Maglor raised an eyebrow at that, almost blushing for the memory of Sindarin's elaborate etiquette, though began to see a little from where Daeron's desperation stemmed.

"I doubt I can fade now," Maglor answered, "Even if I wish for it, which I won't and therefore perhaps cannot. Like you, I am to remain on these shores until another reckoning, if it comes." Daeron looked up at him, there's a faint tremor in his hands. There was something in those dark eyes, too, as if an impossible wish made in hopelessness had been granted. But what powers Maglor possessed in granting wishes he preferred not to speculate.

"You don't think it will then?"

"I believe much of the world, and it believes none of me." Maglor said, "The best thing, as my life had taught me, in these circumstances is to admit defeat against impossible and look for the improbable opportunity." Even if the improbable opportunity may come in the form unbearable deprivation- Maglor could still feel the back of his throat where the skin was rough from the live coals he had swallowed- the memory of that last day of the age might've never come back otherwise. Such pain, and misery. A singer unburdened of his voice. An oathkeeper suddenly unburdened of his oath.

"And have you found it?" A cautious question couched in a cautious tone deserves a reckless reply. This Maglor also learnt in his long life.

"As much as you've found, though I am late come to this realization, in comparison." Daeron lips parted, though no sound came out. He wetted them, swallowed, and tried again: "You will remain then?"

"Yes." Maglor drew his lips back in a smile. "So you see, Daeron, you've done right. I didn't know it at first. But I suppose I want to thank you." Daeron blinked.

"You're welcome."

"There are, nevertheless, points regarding the circumstances that I would like to clear up. How are you, that day, upon that mad stretch of sand? I have thought and wandered all these centuries. There were rumors, fantastical artistic depictions, all of it untrue. I was there. You were there. All others heard it told. 'It is told' they say. By whom? Were you me, or was I you?"

"Both." Answered the other. "Music's the language of all and we're virtuosos. The song, after a while, is the same, that of the world."

Maglor refused to follow this. It was not why he was here.

"Where's the Silmaril, Daeron?"

Daeron eyes slid away from Maglor's. It was good as an admission.

"You still want it then?"AD1 Hearing that, now, Maglor laughed.

"Why would I? When I have said so much to you? But, Daeron, my oath." Maglor looked down at his own hands, unable the suppress the hysteria that shook inside him. "As much as I wish to avoid the knowledge, I still remember it too well, down to the direction of the wind."

"Southerly." He looked up, surprised.

"The wind was southerly. You're not the only elf with a good memory." Daron said bitterly. "It was a cold day, unseasonably damp but the sea was warm. Everyone knew the dangers of a Feanorion. I knew what you planned. I knew what I planned. I can't face them, you must understand. I can't afford to fade and face Mandos..or them. When they've died and I…."

"Which still does not tell me where it is. I don't believe you've kept it, nor do I believe everything handed down by bards and minstrels. You are one, I am one, yet we lie so easily. It's the mark of the artist. Why do I wander along the shores of Middle Earth singing elegies for the elvenkind? That's the story isn't it? But you and I, we are the only truth-keepers of this secret now. The question is, why do **you** wander madly in grief if all you suffer, for you dare to use that word with me, if all you have suffered is cowardice, and perhaps bitterness. I've heard you sing. It's a graver thing than regret."

Daeron looked up, and Maglor met his eyes. They were both angry. Air curdled between them, between the guilty and the accused, which they were them both.

"It's in the sea. In Ulmo's keeping. I've given it to him. My offering, my sacrifice." Daeron said, "Though it was supposed to be yours, a Feanorion returning the Tree's Light into the stained waters. But it became my offering, in exchange for the immortality of my flesh. Only afterwards, when it was done I knew my mistake. I tried to correct my mistake. I have my standards." He tried to smile.

"Otherwise you've not devoted yourself to that elaborate lie." Daeron nodded, and Maglor, for the first time in this age, could not find words. "But thank you for your honesty, Daeron." He would've settled for courtesy, had not his mind suddenly remembered the image of Elros's face before he left him and his brother, leaving perhaps, the bitter taste of an Elven fate as well, of the High Elven fate forever woven in the Music, feeling it's every harmony and dischord. He knew what to say to Daeron now, though he was loath to say it, because these words were not his own. "Else you've made a mad, if virtuous bargain for what may be only a small time after all. The sea will drown the world at the end Iluvatar's power in the air, earth, and sea. He will close it and remake the world."

"But you said…"

"I didn't believe it but now I know. It didn't matter what we believed. It will come and none of us will escape." Maglor said, stood, and walked away. He had would never see Daeron again and he had understood that Celeborn's face had been like fate. When the time come for them to walk the Straight Way, not for them a ship running before the wind. It will be another journey, as long and as hard as the years they spent too knowing or too ignorant of themselves.

* * *

AD1 


End file.
